Georgetown University - Student Life

Student Life

The Georgetown undergraduate student body, at 7,553 as of 2010, is composed primarily of students from outside the District of Columbia area, with 34% of new 2010 students coming from Mid-Atlantic states, 11% being international students and the remainder coming from other areas of the US. The student body also represented 129 different countries, with 9% being international, including over 330 undergraduate and 1,050 graduate students who chose to come to Georgetown as a study abroad destination in 2009–10. As of that year, the racial diversity of the undergraduate student body was 62.3% white, 8.8% Asian, 6.3% black, and 5.9% Hispanic; Additionally, 55.2% of undergraduates are female.

Although it is a Jesuit university, only 41% of the student body identify as Roman Catholic, while 22% identify as Protestant as of 2009. Georgetown employs a full-time rabbi, as 6.5% of undergraduates are Jewish. It was the first U.S. college to have a full-time imam, to serve the over four-hundred Muslims on campus. Georgetown also sponsors student groups for Bahá'i, Buddhist, Hindu, and Mormon traditions. The student body consists of both religious and irreligious students, and more than four-hundred freshmen and transfer students attend a nonreligious Ignatian retreat annually, called ESCAPE.

A 2007 survey of undergraduates also suggests that 62.8% are sexually active, while 6.2% identify as LGBTQ. Discrimination can be an issue on campus, and three-fourths of a 2009 survey considered homophobia a campus problem. Newsweek, however, rated Georgetown among its top "Gay-Friendly Schools" in 2010. In 2011, College Magazine ranked Georgetown as the tenth most hipster U.S. college, while People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals considered it the third most vegan friendly small U.S. school.

Almost all undergraduates attend full-time. A majority of undergraduates, 76%, live on-campus in several dormitories and apartment complexes, including all underclassmen. As of 2011, 1255 undergraduates and 339 graduate students live off-campus, mostly in the Georgetown, Glover Park, Burleith, and Foxhall neighborhoods. Although many of the University's hall directors and area coordinators attend graduate level courses, on-campus housing is not available for main campus graduate students. The school hopes to build such housing by 2020. All students in the Medical School live off-campus, most in the surrounding neighborhoods, with some in Northern Virginia and elsewhere through the region.